Rats and vermin round my feet There are rocks out there in that wide, wide Play unharmed, companions sweet, Spiders weave me overhead Day by day the mould I smell Nightly in my haunted sleep Gyves of iron scrape and burn God of Israel, canst Thou see Thou who madest me so fair, Swift as horse upon my feet, Canst Thou see me through the gloom Once the lord and prince of men? Cared I no more for Thy laws Than a wind of scattered straws. When the earth quaked at my name From Thy open nostrils blow Tortured am I, wracked and bowed, Israel's God, come down and see Then, with thunder loud and wild, Give me splendor in my deathNot this sickening dungeon breath, Creeping down my blood like slime, Till it wastes me in my prime. Give me back, for one blind hour, Then, O God, Thy mercy show At whose life they scorn and point, VAN ELSEN GOD spake three times and saved Van Elsen's soul; He spake by sickness first and made him whole; Van Elsen heard him not, Or soon forgot. God spake to him by wealth, the world out poured HEAT Archibald Lampman FROM plains that reel to southward, dim, The road runs by me white and bare; Up the steep hill it seems to swim Beyond, and melt into the glare. Nearer the summit, slowly steals By his cart's side the wagoner Of white dust puffing to his knees. From sky to sky on either hand, Is the sole thing that seems to move In all the heat-held land. Beyond me in the fields the sun Soaks in the grass and hath his will; I count the marguerites one by one; Even the buttercups are still. On the brook yonder not a breath Disturbs the spider or the midge. The water-bugs draw close beneath The cool gloom of the bridge. Where the far elm-tree shadows flood In intervals of dreams I hear The cricket from the droughty ground; I lift mine eyes sometimes to gaze : And yet to me not this or that Is always sharp or always sweet; In the sloped shadow of my hat I lean at rest, and drain the heat; |